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ABOUT
TOBACCO
AND
ITS DELETERIOUS EFFECTS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
HivSTORY OF The Ohio Country Between the
Years 1783 and 1815; IncIvUding MiIvITary Oper-
ations THAT Twice Saved to The United States
THE Country West of the Ai^i^egheny Moun-
tains After the Revoi^utionary War. 8vo.
History of The Maumee River Basin: Em-
bracing Best Important Historic, Ci^imatic,
Agricui^tural and Business Regions of North-
western Ohio incIvUding THE Great Petroi^eum
and Gas Districts; Northeastern Indiana,
AND Southern Michigan. Imperial 8vo, 688
pag-es. Illustrated with Maps, Plans, Weapons
and Pioneer Articles of Utility, Forts, Rivers,
Landscapes, Etc.
History of Frances Slocum; For Sixty-nine
Years Captive With Dei^aware and Miami
Aborigines During Their most Savage History.
A Study in Civilized Heredity' vs. Savage and
Eater Barbarous Environment. Thin 8vo,
Well Illustrated.
History of The Si^ocums, Slocumbs and Si,o-
coMBS OF America; Genealogical, Biographi-
cal, Marriages, and Descendants in Both Male
AND Female Lines; From A. D. 1637 to 1908.
Two Volumes 8vo; Vol. I, 644 pages, Published
1882; Vol. II, 559 pages, Additional to Vol. I, Pub.
1908. Both Vols. Well Illustrated.
White Children and Adults Captive With
THE Savage Aborigines in the Ohio Country.
12mo. Illustrated.
The Deleterious Effcts of Fiction Reading.
12mo.
Address THE SEOCUM PUBLISHING CO.,
Toledo, Ohio.
ABOUT
TOBACCO
AND
ITS DELETERIOUS EFFECTS
A BOOK FOR EVERYBODY, BOTH
USERS AND NON-USERS
B Y
CHARLES ELIHU SLOCUM, M. D., PH. D., LL. D.
(CoL'UMBiA University, and University of Pennsylvania)
Member of Local, Ohio State, and The Amer-
ican Medical Associations
There is neither tobacco nor alcoholic beverage in
the science of good health or the conditions
for true manhood
1909
THE SLOCUM PUBLISHING COMPANY
TOLEDO, OHIO
OF THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
?;
f^^
QlY^2cf(XJzL^^
TO LIVE PROPERLY REQUIRES
a conscience and will cultured
to duly respect the health of
body and mind of self, and the
rights of others.
TO THE
FREE MEN AND FREE WOMEN
OF AMERICA
This Book
Is Respectfully Dedicated
In Recognition of Their Freedom
From the Slavery of Narcotics
And the Exemplariness thereby Exhibited
206902
^ THE CRAVING FOR TOBACCO, OR ANY
OTHER NARCOTIC
is but a perversion of ph3'siolo^ic, healthful
appetite which, if gratified, soon leads to
perversion and destruction of the victim's
will, or the facult}' of conscious or deliberate
action to quit what appeals to ever}^ clean,
well-informed mind as an unclean and most
sinful habit against self, and against the
human race.
wrr I nc
UNIVERSITY
OF
PREFACE
The writer, a physician of over forty years
practical experience, like all physicians of
ample patronage, has seen very largely of
the baneful effects of tobacco, as enumer-
ated on succeeding pages. He is impelled
by a sense of duty to put forth this book in
hope to awaken the conscience and sense of
propriety of users of tobacco, and to warn
all non-users, including the young, against
beginning its use.
It is hoped that the reader may herein be
shown, forcefully, that the use of tobacco is
one of the most unnatural, useless, and worst
of habits, from the continued efforts and
sickness necessary to form the habit, from
its impairment of body and mind, its en-
slavement of the will, its disgusting en-
croachments on the pure air and other rights
of those not addicted to it, and its further
sinfulness in its entailment of degeneracy.
From the writer's observations among his
patrons a large book could be written ; but
it appears to him preferable to bring togeth-
er in small compass, for the general reader,
succinct statements of many medical men,
prominent in the different lines of profes-
sional activity in different countries, rather
than let the evidence, herein given against
the use of tobacco, rest on individual testi-
mony.
When a young man, the writer, hke so
many others, 'learned to use tobacco' and
continued its use for several years in what is
called moderation by the average user. Be-
fore entering upon the study of medicine,
however, the ill effects of the weed became
so apparent to him that he threw into the
falls of Niagara nearly all of the last cigar
he lighted, the holder with it. Fortunately
he had enough of moral courage and strength
of will left to overcome the habit's craving
for continuance; and he has since been en-
tirely free from tobacco. During all of these
forty-five years of freedom, he has not ceased
to be thankful for his deliverance from
one of the most unnatural, enslaving, and
degenerating of habits.
The writer has thus had ample personal
experience with tobacco and, having for
many years had in mind the publication of
evidence against its use, his observations of
its ill effects have probably been closer on
this account. He fully accords with the
strong indictment against the habit shown
on the succeeding pages of this book.
Charles Elihu Slocum.
Toledo, Ohio, December, 1909.
CONTENTS
I
The Discovery of Tobacco and of its
Habitual Uses ....
PAGE
13
II
Tobacco's Place in the Vegetable
Kingdom
16
Ill
The Component Parts of Tobacco
21
IV
The Poisonous Action of Tobacco
24
V
The Pathologic (Diseasing) Effects
of Tobacco
30
VI
Further Mention of Diseases Caused
by Tobacco
35
Vii
1
Tobacco Impairs the Functions of
Both Body and Mind ... 43
VIII
Tobacco Begets Indolence, and In-
difference to Propriety, and to
Well-Being ..... 49
IX
Tobacco Causes Organic Degenera-
tions, and the Transmission of De-
generacy 55
Contents — Continricd
X
Questions Answered. The Corrupters.
Reformers Wanted For Their Sup-
pression ..... 62
IT IS THE INHERENT RIGHT OF
CHILDREN to be born healthful; and to be
led and guided, and held, only along the
paths of purity of body and mind, to the
strenghtening of the judgment, and the will,
for their freedom of thought and action
along the lines of the pure, and the right,
in all things.
13
I
The Discovery of Tobacco and of Its
Habitual Uses.
The use of tobacco began with the Abor-
iginal people of the more central part of
America in prehistoric time, so far as de-
finitely known.*
The discovery of the use of tobacco by
Europeans in November, A. D., 1492, led to
their first discovery of the plant. Christo-
*The writer is aware that Mayer, in his Geogra-
phy of Plants, states that the smoking of tobacco
began with the Chinese people in ancient times; and
that he observed on very old sculptures in China the
representation of the same form of pipe that is yet
in use there. In archeologic sense there is nothing
definite about Mayen's statements, however, as many
very old products of man according to some writers,
do not antedate one century even.
The valuable scientific results of the Morris K.
Jesup Exploring Expedition through northwestern
America and northeastern Asia in recent years, make
it appear very probable to many well informed peo-
ple, that even the Chinese people are descendants
of the American Aborigines, improperly called
Indians. If such be the case, the migrating Chinese
ancestors carried with them from America the great
vice of tobacco using. ^
14
pher Columbus sent out a company for ex-
ploration from the caravels (small ships) of
his first expedition in the discovery of Amer-
ica when anchored off the island the land
of which was the first he discovered and on
which he first landed and named San Sal-
vador, now of the Bahama group. This
exploring company reported to Columbus,
among other things, that they saw people
with fire brands lighting a dried herb, with
the smoke of which they perfumed them-
selves.
This habit of smoking by these Aborigines
was first formed by their unavoidable inha-
lation of the smoke of naturally matured and
dried wild tobacco plants in the tropics, as
with other vegetation, in the spread of forest
fires; it being noticed that the smoke from
this particular class of plants produced results
that demanded its continuance, that is,
fixed an uncontrollable habit upon them.
The habit of snufBng finely powered dry
leaves of tobacco up the nostrils, was the re-
sult of gathering and preparing the naturally
dried leaves for smoking use; the dust from
crushing the leaves being satisfying to the
desire for smoking. This habit of snuffing
was first observed and described by Ramon
Pane, a Franciscan, who accompanied Co-
lumbus on his second voyage to America,
A. D. 1 494- 1 496.
15
The chewing of tobacco naturally followed
the habit of smoking, particularly when fire
for smoking could not readily be obtained
in wet seasons by the crude pocesses of fire-
producing known to the Aboriginal and early
peoples. This mode of using tobacco was
first observed, and described, by Spaniards
on the coast of South America in the year
1502.
The name tobacco was first observed used
by the people on the island first called by
the Spaniards Hispaniola, now known as
Santo Domingo, and Haiti. The word to-
bacco, as here heard, was recorded by Orviedo
in his History of the West Indies, A. D.
1535, as applying to the pipe formed of
hollow twigs in the form of the letter Y,
the upper parts to be inserted into the nos-
trils to draw into these cavities the smoke
from dry tobacco through the larger part be-
low. Benzoni, however, in his Travels in
America, 1542-15 56, published in 1565, found
in Mexico the name *tabacco' applied to the
dry leaves of the plant.
i6
II
Tobacco's Place in the Vegetable King-
dom.
There is infinite variety in all of Nature's'
works, and particularly where there is life.
This is seen in all classifications. Every
family, in both Vegetable and Animal King-
doms, shows certain very strong contrasts.
In no classification is this fact seen in
greater extremes, for both good and evil to
mankind, than in the Solanaceae or Potato
Family.
The Potato, tuber of our tables, with gen-
eral and specific names Solaitmn tuberosum,
belongs to this Solanaceae Family. It is
well styled the King of Vegetables, and is
one of the great gifts of America to all other
parts of the earth.
On the other hand the Tobacco plant, be-
longing to the same family with generic
name Nicotiana and specific names given on
later pages, contains the most active poison
known, which poison when continually taken
into the system in minute quantities enslaves
the users, and makes the use of tobacco a vice
17
equalled in its baneful effects only by the
use of alcoholic beverages.*
The number of species of Tobacco plants,
genus Nicotiana,^ growing in different cli-
mates and described by botanists, is about
fifty; but few of them however, are culti-
vated for smoking, chewing or snuffing uses.
The tobacco most used in historic times
by the Aborigines of the northern States
east of the Missouri River, and sometimes
cultivated by their women, is the hardy plant
bearing the name Nicotiana rustica L.
Some plants of this specie are yet occasion-
ally seen growing wild in fields and waste
*In the Potato Family, theSolanaceae, also belong,
in different genera, the Ground Cherries, Night-
shades, Horse Nettle, Cherry Tomato, the common
edible Tomato, Henbane or Hyoscyamus, the Da-
turas including the Jamestown Weed usually called
Jimson Weed with specific name Stramonium;
and the Petunias. There are in this family of plants
twelve genera and somewhat over forty species grow-
ing, mostly in wild state, in the northern United
States and Canada, most of them being noxious
weeds, and several of them poisonous.
f Named from Jean Nicot French ambassador to
Portugal, where he was presented with seeds of a
tobacco plant which he caused to be planted in
France about the year 1560. Later, he 'rendered
service' in spreading knowledge of the herb, and
botanists united in the use of his name, latinized, for
the genus; and chemists used his name for the most
poisonous ingredient.
i8
places from Ontario to Minnesota, and south-
ward to Florida. Its hight varies from two
to five feet. Leaves are broadly ovate, thin,
entire, slender-petioled, two to eight inches
long, one to six inches wide; petioles one-
half inch to five-and-a-half inches long;
flowers greenish-yellow, about one inch long,
panicled. The leaves of this specie remain
greenish when dry; it flowers from June to
September. This specie was the first one
cultivated in England and most other parts
of the eastern continents; and it was often
given the name of the country where culti-
vated, viz: English Tobacco, Syrian Tobac-
co, etc. It is at present not so much culti-
vated in the United States as formerly.
Other species recorded as cultivated or
used by the American Aborigines, are: Ni-
cotiana qtiadrivaivis along the Missouri
River and westward; N, multivalvis along
the Columbia River; and N. nanis among
the Rocky Mountains.
The specie N. longifloraQ.2M., Long-flow-
ered Tobacco, is native of South America,
and has been cultivated thence northward to
Ohio. It may sometimes be seen growing
wild near the places where at present, or
formerly, cultivated.
The specie generally cultivated in Vir-
ginia, formerly at least, is Nicotiana taba-
ctun. It was this specie that the older phy-
19
sicians formerly exploited as a 'medicine'
with very serious results. In good soil the
plant attains a hight of five to six feet; has
lanceolate sessile leaves six to eighteen inches
long; flowers rose-colored, the throat of the
corolla inflated, the segments pointed.
The 'best' Havana cigars, it is supposed,
are made of the leaves of Nicotiana repanda
grown in Cuba. This specie contains less
of the more active parts of tobacco than
many other species.
Nearly every one of the more prominent
tobacco-growing regions, in the United States
particularly, has its favorite specie of the
plant, from seed generally, imported from
Cuba or other distant place; and the tobacco
produced is often given the name of the
person or place whence obtained or where
grown, as the Havana Seed-leaf, the Gadsden,
etc. The Perique is from Louisiana; the
White Burley brand originated in Ohio.
The claim is made in later years that Aus-
tralia, New Caledonia, Persia {^Nicotiana
Persicd), and one or two other' countries,
have indigenous tobacco herbs or small trees,
as members of this genus often attain larger
size in hot climates. But seeds, or plants,
for their propagation may have been carried
there several centuries ago, even by pre-
historic migrating people, and the claims
of the earlier writers may be true that
20
tobacco plants were indigenous only in
America.
Different soils and climates produce tobac-
co of different strengths and flavors; and dif-
ferent processes of culture, of drying the
leaves, and of preparing them for each of
the ways used, produce effects desirable to
different tastes and desires. *
*The term tobacco has been applied to a number
of other herbs, among their other common names,
although these plants possess little if any resem-
blance to tobacco plants in proper sense. They be-
long to different families, viz:
1. Wild, or Indian Tobacco, is a lobelia, Lobelia
infiata (L.) Richards. It has been used as an
emetic, and is not so prostrating and poisonous as to-
bacco. It belongs to the Belleflower Family, the
Cafnpanulaceae .
2. Ladies Tobacco. Other common names are:
White Plaintain-leaf Everlasting, Mouse-ear Ever-
lasting, also Pussy-toes. Its scientific name is An-
tennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Richards, of the Com-
positae or Thistle Family.
3. Mountain Tobacco, Arctic Leopard's bane, Arc-
tic Arnica. The Arnica alpina (L.)Olin, of the
Thistle Family {Compo sitae.)
4. Oregon Tobacco, Tobacco-root, Edible Valer-
ian. The Valeriana edulus Nutt. Of the Valerian-
ceae or Valerian Family.
5. Tobacco-weed, Woolly Elephant's-foot. The
Elephantopus tomentosus L. Of the Thistle Family.
21
III
The Component Parts of Tobacco.
The French chemist Louis Nicolas Vau-
quelin, born in the year 1763, died in 1829,
was the first, in 1809, to make a more scien-
tific analysis of a tooacco plant, and to de-
termine most of its active parts. His work
was followed and somewhat elaborated by
chemist Hermbstadt, and in 1828 by Posselt
and Reimann who ascertained the alkaline
nature of the most active part named by dif-
ferent ones nicotin, nicotina, and nicotia,
like the genus name of the plant in honor
of Jean Nicot.
Nicotin is an alkaloid with chemic formula
C10H14N2, it possessing the largest part of
nitrogen of all the many component parts of
tobacco. It is colorless, or nearly colorless
fluid when fresh, but soon assumes an amber
color. It is entirely volatilizable, inflam-
mable, very soluble in water, alcohol, ether,
fixed oils and turpentine. Its solvents do
not destroy or appreciably modify, its active
poisonous nature, which is one of the most
active poisons known. It forms crystalliza-
ble salts with many acids. In tobacco it is
22
supposed to exist in combination with malic
acid as a malate.
The second most active chemic part of
tobacco as noted by some analysts has
been named by them Nicotiana, or Tobacco
Camphor. It was separated by distillation
of the leaves, fresh or dry, with water. It
is somewhat fatty in consistency, and dries
in minute acicular crystals, with tobacco
odor. Much of the poisonous activity of
this product, however,* is probably due to
nicotin.
The leaves are the strongest part of the
plant and contain, in addition to the more
active poisonous parts named in the fore-
going paragraphs, albuminous substances and
from sixteen to twenty-seven per centum of
inorganic substances in form of different
combinations not definitely differentiated
into all of their natural forms. The great
number, and strength, of the constituents of
tobacco plants, account for the great ex-
hausting effects of tobacco crops on soils.
Poor soil cannot produce 'good' tobacco.
The smoke of burning tobacco, as drawn
into mouths and throats of 'smokers' has
been carefully gathered by different appara-
tuses made for the purpose, in addition to
the different forms of pipes in more or less
general use; and the smoke, with and with-
out its accumulations along the tubes, has
23
been analyzed. These analyses have varied
as much as, probably more than, those of the
plant itself, principally from the dej?ree of
skill of the analyzers. A few do not note
Nicotin in the smoke as they collected it,
while others have discerned it distinctly in
different combinations.
All capable observers agree in the complex-
ity of the empyreumatic, resinous deposits
in pipes and apparatuses with which the
smoking iS done; that it is exceedingly poi-
sonous, and that more or less of every part
of it is taken into the system in smoking as in
other modes of use of tobacco.
Vohl and Eulenberg (see The Dispensa-
tory of the United States of America by
Doctors Wood, Bache, Remington, and
Sadtler, 15th edition) noted the following
named gases in tobacco smoke, viz: carbon
monoxid, CO; carbon dioxid, CO2; and a
hydrocarbon with composition of marsh gas,
CH4; hydrogen cyanid, HCy, or prussic acid;
hydrogen sulfid, HS; different ammonias;
and an oily-like substance as it condensed
along the pipe or tubes, which has been an-
alyzed as containing pyridin, C5H5N; pico-
lin, CgHtN; lutidin, C7H9N; collidin, CsHnN;
parvolin, C9H13N; coridin, C10H15N; rubi-
din, C11H17N; and viridin, C12H19N.
Pyridin was found to be most abundant in
smoke from tobacco in pipe, and picolin,
24
lutidin, and collidin in smoke from cigar. —
Doctor B. W. Richardson in his book on
Diseases of Modern Life.
IV
The Poisonous Action of Tobacco.
Tobacco has no health-giving or health-
aiding action on animal life. Its effects are
wholly disease-producing, in double and most
pernicious senses. Many capable and con-
scientious physicians of all countries for
generations, and in far increasing number
and ability, have been careful observers of its
evil effects in the systems of their patients,
and friends. A summary of its effects when
first, and however, used, are here given
together with the names of a few of the ob-
servers, and of the publications wherein re-
corded, viz:
The first taste of tobacco is acrid and,
with very small quantity of the weed or of
its smoke in the mouth, there is immediately
absorbed into the blood enough of its active
parts to produce violent poisoning effects,
however active the glands about the mouth
to throw out the poison. These symptoms
25
are: palpitation of the heart, faintness, diz-
ziness, nausea and, with slight increase of
quantity taken, vomiting, tremor, paralysis,
and quick death, frequently in convulsions
caused by poisoning of the spinal cord, the
first stage of tobacco poisoning being spinal
excitement. — Treatise on Therapeutics, Ma-
teria Me die a and Toxicology by Dr. H. C.
Wood.
Such deaths have been numerously re-
ported. But few of them will be here
referred to:
A boy aged thirteen years died from ci-
garet-smoking. — Reported by Dr. Broom-
head in the Medical Chronicle for March,
1889.
The medical journal the Lancet, London,
England, 2nd April, 1892, reports the deaths
of one hundred boys under sixteen years of
age from cigaret-smoking.
A girl nine years old was acutely poisoned
to death in Louisville, Ky., Tobacco Stem-
mery where she was hired to work. — Dr.
Chapman in the Medical Standard, Chica-
go, January, 1892.
The French poet M. Santeuil died of acute
poisoning by Tobacco Snuff taken in a jok-
ing way. — Doctors Woodman and Tidy's
book on Forensic Medicine and Toxicology,
page 380. This authentic book reports a
number of other deaths from tobacco used in
26
different ways, including for murder, and for
suicide. Taylor's Manual of Medical Juris-
prudence also contains similar reports, as do
other similar books.
From the faintness and loss of voluntary
motion 'from learning to use tobacco' some
physicians early in the 19th century tried
poultices, stupes, lotions, and ointments,
made of it, on the skin; and decoctions, so-
lutions, etc., by enema, for the relief of
colic, for the relaxation of the muscles in
strangulated hernia (rupture) and some
other spasmodic affections. All such uses of
tobacco showed symptoms of poisoning im-
mediately. When applied externally where
it could be removed before much symptom of
poisoning occurred, or in case of enema was
expelled from the body sufficiently, some of
the patients recovered from its use; but the
deaths from its poison were relatively so
numerous that the plant was banished from
the Officinal Medical List (Pharmacopeia) of
every countr}^ See Treatise on Therapeti-
tics by Doctors Trousseau, Pidoux, Paul, and
Lincoln, 1880, Volume II; Dr. Wood's Trea-
tise on Therapeutics, Materia Medica, and
Toxicology ; Dr. Copeland's Dictionary of
Practical Medicine, article on colic, etc.,
and Dr. Husemann in Handbuch der Toxi-
cologie, Volume II, page 483.
Doctor Griscom's book on The Use of
27
Tobacco^ quotes Dr. Tyrell of Ohio who was
called to see a healthy young girl with sore
on upper lip from burn she suffered three
weeks before, whose mother, hoping to heal
the sore, had placed on it a little of the
sediment from the bottom of her tobacco-
pipe — and the girl died in convulsions a few
hours after the application.
The difficulty of separating the compo-
nent partsof this empyreumatic oleo-resinous
sediment from tobacco smoke into the exact
chemic formula and combinations therein
existing, makes it impossible at present to
determine the exact effect of each part; and
this is not necessary to know. In the com-
bination as found in the smoke inhaled, the
settlings in every pipe, mouth-end of cigars,
also accompanying the dark coloring of the
teeth in all ways of tobacco use, the numer-
ous observations in man, and experiments on
lower animals, show them all to be viru-
lently poisonous with the same effects as
nicotin, nicotiana, nicotia, or the entire to-
bacco leaf, in whatever way used.
Physicians prescribing the use of tobacco
in any form, set up complex ailments if not
specific ones, writes Doctor Dujardin-Beau-
metz in his book on Diseases of the StomacJi
and Intestines, Doctor Hurd's edition.
Alcoholic beverages do not counteract, or
retard, the poisonous effect of tobacco; as
28
persons intoxicated with whiskey have died
from 'taking a little too much of it' writes
Doctor Griscom in his book on The Use of
Tobacco. People have been poisoned to
death by taking tobacco into the stomach in
rum, and in whisky. — Forensic Medicine and
Toxicology by Doctors Woodman and Tidy,
page 381.
The effects of tobacco are the same on
the system of the lower animals as in man-
kind;* but it has been presumed that some
of the herbivora can take more of it without
fatal effect than the carnivora. This is
probably due to the tolerance begotten from
occasionally browsing the tobacco plant.
*This statement may call to the mind of some
reader the 'tobacco worm and beetle', the enemies
of the plants, as possible exceptions to the rule.
A careful study of the biology, and biochemistry,
of growing plants will show innocuous stages in poi-
sonous plants, as well as stages of difficult digestion
in some edible fruits and vegetables in their unripe
stages. A detail scientific study of the changes oc-
curring in seeds in their germinating, growing, and
ripening stages, gives glimpses of the marvelous pro-
cesses of nature. Pharmaceutical chemistry shows
the proper time for gathering any one or more parts
of a plant for the active ingredient or part wanted
for medicine. The professional tobacco-grower, and
the 'manufacturer' have grown 'wise' in their efforts
to produce 'desired results' in their products. It is,
however, at times difficult to preserve any vegetable
or animal matter from the destructive influences of
saprophytic fauna and flora.
29
Tobacco is injurious to digestion, writes
Dr. Wilson Fox in his book on Diseases of
the StomacJi, 3rd edition.
The influence of tobacco, however used,
extends to both mucous membrane and mus-
cular layers of the stomach, and produces
great irritation, redness and injection of
vessels. When the tobacco is stopped these
changes somewhat subside, but not entirely.
The mucous membrane secretes irregularly
and, as a general rule, does not produce the
due amount of gastric fluid; hence digestion
is impeded. Afterwards an acrid fluid is left
in the stomach which irritates and give rise
to heartburn, eructations, frequent nausea
with an almost constant sensation of debil-
ity of the stomach. Carried to somewhat
further excess it produces a palsied condi-
tion of the muscular fibers, leading to a great
increase of debilit}^ in the digestive organs
and probably death. From analogy derived
from the inferior animals, which analogy
must be very perfect, the condition of the
vital organs when first using tobacco are as
follows: The brain is pale and empty of
blood; the stomach is reddened in round
spots, so raised and pile-like that they re-
semble patches of dark Utrecht velvet; the
blood is preternaturally fluid; the lungs are
pale as the lungs of a calf when we see them
suspended in the shambles; while the heart
30
overburdened with blood and have little
power left for its forcing action, is scarcely
contracting, but is feebly trembling as if,
like a conscious thing, it knew equally its
responsibility and its own weakness. It is
not a beating, it is a fluttering heart. —
See Dr. Richardson's book on Induced
Diseases of Modern Life.
V
The Pathologic (Diseasing) Effects of
Tobacco.
The action of tobacco whenever and how-
ever used is a disease affect and effect, a
general call to, and rallying of, all the pow-
ers of the system to aid in preventing se-
rious harm, and in eliminating the poison.
This process of protection is constantly at
work in the system of every user of the poi-
son, however long continued or deep in the
vice of the habit; and no one can foretell
when the system may succumb to the dire-
ful effects of the habit.
However used, the active parts of tobacco
are quickly absorbed into the blood, and
31
however small the quantity absorbed the af-
fects and effects are baneful. Every func-
tion of the system is quickly affected through
the blood and the nerves.
One of the most important parts of the
brain, the medulla oblongata connecting
directly with the spinal cord, receives the
brunt of tobacco poison and transmits its
serious effects throughout the entire system.
Hereby we understand its effects on the
nervous system in general and the great
joint-nerve of the lungs and stomach (pneu-
mogastric nerve) in particular. — See Dr.
Huchard's Ldcttwes, first printed in Le Bul-
letin Me die ale 22-26 May, 1889.
But this is not all. Much is due to its ac-
tion on the muscular system in general, and
particularly upon the vascular walls. Thus
we see why it is that tobacco is such a strong
poison to the heart throughout its vascular,
nervous and muscular systems, and to every
other organ, and every part of the general
system also, through the same sources.
The spasmodic (vasoconstrictive) action
of tobacco has been thoroughly demonstra-
ted. It has been demonstrated that the
effects of tobacco resemble absolutely those
produced by electrifying (galvanization) of
the great sympathetic nerve. It produces
a rigid spasm which, secondarily, constricts
the blood vessels and deprives the muscles
32
of proper nourishment, thus producing mus-
cular ischaemia, which explains in part the
tremor, muscular weakness, and paralytic
symptoms (paresis) observed in the testings
of tobacco on the lower animals. Such vaso-
constrictive action produces disturbances
in every part of every organ in the body,
and disorders proper function throughout.
(In this connection see Dr. M. Allen Starr's
address on Vasomotor Trophic Neuroses in
The Joui'nal of the A merican Medical A sso-
ciation 17 July, 1909).
In the use of tobacco the nerve centers
exhibit signs of improper blood supply (is-
chaemia), producing brain-spinal (cerebro-
spinal) irritation, headache, nausea, morn-
ing fatigue, impairment of memory, mind
(psychical) irritation, inaptitude for work,
disability of speech and writing (aphasia),
symptoms of paralysis of one side (hemiple-
gia) alternating from right to left, etc.
The constricted, oppressed breathing
(dyspnoea) is due to the action of the to-
bacco on the medulla oblongata and through
its systems of nerves to the respiratory
muscles, and including the muscular layers of
the pulmonary circulatory system.
The untoward effect of tobacco on the
kidneys is traced to this hyperarterial ten-
sion, combined with the general irritation.
Tobacco is thus a factor in Glycosuria (dia-
( UNIVERSITY )
33
betes mellitus). See Dr. Love's article in
The Jour, of the Am. Med. Assn. Vol. 36,
page 540.
It is upon the heart itself, however, that
some of the most deplorable effects of this
vascular lock-jaw (tetanization) are pro-
duced. Herein arises the source of the par-
ox3'smal pain about the heart (angina pec-
toris) with suffocation, syncope and often
death, due to the spasm and changes in the
coronary arteries and consequent poor nour-
ishment (ischaemia) of the great muscles of
the heart. The hard, small, quick, and of-
ten' irregular tobacco pulse is caused by this
vasoconstrictive action, and weakened
heart.
The heart, arteries, and gastro-intestinal
system suffer great rise of pressure from
the undue effect of tobacco on the vasomo-
tor center of the medulla oblongata, thus
weakening the heart from affection of the
vagus nerve and inhibitory ganglia of the
heart. — See the medical journal Pi^actitioner,
London, England, July, 1905.
Tobacco affects the heart by paralyzing
the minute vessels which form the batteries,
so to speak, of the pneumogastric nerve
which furnishes motive power for lungs,
heart, and digestive apparatus. Proof of
this is seen in the congestive cough, and
dyspeptic symptoms often in connetion with
34
tobacco heart. Enlargement of the heart
is apt to follow. — Dr. Maine in the Medical
News 26 July, 1902. Also see article by Dr.
L. P. Clark in The Medical Record New-
York City, 29 June, 1907.
At first these effects are functional; and
with the habitual tobacco user there is con-
stant functional disturbance. It should be
evident, therefore, to everyone that the con-
tinued use of tobacco begets an increasing
permanency of functional effect that cannot
but beget organic disease. Every organ of
the body is subject to a variety of forms of
organic disease from this cause.
The effects of tobacco are cumulative,
writes Dr. Mitchell in the Lancet-Clinic 13
June, 1908. The effects of tobacco are con-
centrated on either the respiratory, the
cardiac, or the alimentary system. — Dr
White in the Birmingham Medical Review^
1904.
Continued use of tobacco, in any form,
begets permanent narrowing (contractures)
of the blood vessels, and a sort of peripheral
circulatory barrier accumulates. Arterial
tension is increased; the heart suffers from
successive dilatations, which in turn become
permanent; and there is produced a general
hardening and degeneration of the coats of
the arteries (arterosclerosis) making sudden
35
death from heart failure, or apoplexy and
paralysis very probable.
With the smoker, particularly, the mon-
oxid of carbon, CO, in the smoke produces
drowsiness, unsteady movements of the
heart, tremulous and even convulsive move-
ments of muscles, and often vomiting, writes
Dr. Richardson in his book on Diseases of
Moderfi Life. With but slight increase of
this virulent poison, death is caused.
The monoxid of carbon in tobacco smoke
affects the hemoglobin of the blood, con-
verting the oxyhemoglobin into carbonic
oxid (CO) hemoglobin, a stable compound
not reduced in the circulation; hence pro-
ducing difficulty of breathing, and quick
death if the poison be not discontinued. —
Dr. Dudley in the Medical News, i6 Sep-
tember, 1888.
Every user of tobacco, in every form used,
is constantly receiving within his system
numerous warnings by nature to stop its
use, viz: irritation of the lips, mouth, throat,
airtubes and lungs, in addition to the sick-
ening symptoms mentioned in the foregoing
paragraphs.
36
VI
Further Mention of Diseases Caused
BY Tobacco.
From the preceding description of the ef-
fects of tobacco throughout the entire sys-
tem, it can readily be understood how it is
that these effects can, and do, originate any
one, or all, of the organic diseases, and in-
cite to increased activity all of those diseases
to which the user was inclined at the time
of his beginning the use of the poison.
Here, again, but few of the great number of
illustrative cases, with references, will be
adduced, viz:
From an examination of more than one
thousand men, women and children, work-
ers in tobacco manufactories, every one was
found poisoned more or less, and suffering
generally, and particularly with one or more
of the following named diseases: of the eyes,
heart, exaggeration of reflexes, headache,
fainting fits, etc. — Madame Walitzkaja in
\he Medical Press, 1887.
Tobacco poisoning by the air of tobacco
works, even to death, has been reported by
different physicians^ and from different
37
works, including Dr. Chapman in the St.
Joseph, Mo., Medical Herald, November,
1891 ; and in the Medical Standard, Chicago,
January, 1892.
With three thousand tobacco workers ex-
amined for eye effects by Dr. F. DowHng of
Cincinnati, he found a large percentage af-
fected by blindness, in addition to lesser
irritations, from disease of the optic nerve,
retina, spine or brain (amaurosis, and am-
blyopia). — The Medical and Surgical Re-
porter, Philadelphia, 22 October, 1892.
Tobacco amblyopia is the most common
of all toxic amblyopias. — Dr. Dowling in
The Lancet-Clinic, 13 June, 1908. Blindness
(amblyopia) from use of tobacco is reported
by Dr. C. A. Wood of Chicago, in Annals
of Opthalmology and Otology, Kansas City,
Mo., July, 1892.
Blindness (amaurosis) was found in horses
that had eaten the weed Nicotiana siiaveo-
lens, the 'native' Australian tobacco. Abso-
lute blindness was developed in the horses
that had eaten of the weed somewhat from
six months to two years. Wasting (atro-
phy) of the spinal cord and its nerves near
the medulla oblongata was found in these
horses on post mortem examination by Dr.
Heusmann of Gottingen, Prussia; reported
in the medical book Schmidf s Jarbiicher,
• Leipzig, Saxony, 15 February, 1895.
38
Tobacco amblyopia (blindness) at first a
functional disorder, perhaps a circulatory or
nutritional disturbance, leads to organic
change, producing atrophy (wasting and
decline) of the papillo-macular fibers, writes
Dr. Ramsey of Scotland in the Glasgow
Medical Journal, December, 1894.
Some observers have reported that in to-
bacco amblyopia (blindness) vision did not
decline below 20200ths;but Dr. Polkinhorn
reported in the Opthalmic Record, Chicago,
July, 1900, that one-half of his cases were
beyond this strong degree of blindness. One
of his cases was a wife who did not smoke,
but was closely confined in caring for a
paralytic husband who was a regular smoker
of tobacco.
Tobacco causes retro-bulbar neuritis (in-
flammation of the optic nerve, and blind-
ness. — Dr. A. T. Haight in the Chicago
Clinic March, 1899.
Tobacco amblyopia is the result of axial
neuritis (central inflammation) of the optic
nerves. — Dr. Bruns in the New Orleans Med-
ical and Surgical Journal, 12 August, 1888.
See also reports on tobacco blindness by
Dr. Baker in Cleveland Medical Gazette^
June, 1888; by Dr. Doyne in the Royal Lon-
don Hospital Reports January, 1888; and
several cases of tobacco blindness (tobacco
amaurosis) by Dr. Ay res in The Lancet-
Clinic 21 January, 1888.
39
Tobacco causes atrophy (wasting in size
and integrity) of the optic nerves and sub-
sequent amaurosis and amblyopia. — Dr. J.
Solberg Wells in his large book on Diseases
of the Eye, 2nd American from the 3rd Eng-
lish edition. Tobacco produces amblyopia
by causing degeneration and destruction of
the ganglion-cells of the macula lutea, the
most important center of sight. — Dr. De-
Schweinitz in the American Joiwnal of the
Medical Sciences September, 1897.
All smokers of tobacco have more or less
serious affections of the eyes. — Dr. B. H.
Brodnax in the journal L Encephale Paris,
October, 1892. Use of tobacco in any way
has injurious effect on eyes, and other organs.
Tobacco causes deafness by irritating,
producing hyperaemia and thickening of the
pharynx and eustachian tubes, writes Dr.
Wingrave of England in the Medical Press
and Circular 11 February, 1903. Tobacco
has direct action on the auditory nerve
producing trophoneurosis and deafness by
its action on the circulation through the
sympathetic nerve. Like other toxic neu-
rites it is progressive, and affects both ears
simultaneously. — Dr. Delie in the journal
Hebdomadaire de Laryngologie, 1905.
In his book on Diseases of the Throat and
Nose Dr. Bosworth of New York City des-
cribes bad effects of tobacco on these parts.
40
Doctor Coomes, of Louisville, Ky., in a
paper read before the Ninth International
Medical Congress describes serious results of
tobacco on the respiratory tubes; see
Transactions of this Congress, Volume IV,
pages loi, 1 02.
The sense of smell is blunted, oft^n
destroyed by the effects of tobacco in the
nasal and post-nasal fossae, causing atrophic
rhinitis and pharyngitis. — Dr. Parker in the
Medical News Philadelphia, 20 September,
1890.
Epithelial changes are produced on the
lips, in the mouth, and respiratory passages
by tobacco, causing perversion of taste and
other senses. — Dr. Barbaran in Revue Medi-
cale de r Est^'d.wQ.y, France, 15 September,
1890. See, also, the British Medical J 02ir-
nal, London, 25 October, 1890. Tobacco
causes sore throat, cancer of the mouth,
throat and lips. — Dr. Merlin of Algeria in the
Gazette Me die ale de P Alger ie 1 5 August, 1 892.
Doctor Favarger of Vienna, Austria, in
the Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift,
1887, also Dr. Gigliarella of Italy in the Ita-
lian medical journal Rivista Clinica, 1887,
report cases of chronic nicotinism (tobacco-
ism) causing disease of the heart with pal-
pitation, irregularity, dyspnoea ( 'heart asth-
ma'), angina pectoris (spasms of pain with
suffocation), chronic myocarditis (fatt}^ de-
41
generation), Gastralgia (great pain in sto-
mach), great disorder of bowel from inflam-
mation of some parts and paralysis of other
parts, etc.
Doctor Anstie reports in his book on
Neuralgia and Similar Diseases, angina pec-
toris caused by tobacco.
The use of tobacco not only lessens the
efficiency of respiratory movements and the
internal distribution of oxygen, but exerts
a special deleterious influence on the heart,
often disturbing the uniformity of its rhythm
and impairing its force; and not unfrequent-
ly causing sudden death by cardiac paraly-
sis. — Dr. Brunton in his Lectures on the
Action of Medicine pages 321-323.
Doctor Robert of Algeria, Africa, writes
in the Gazette Medicate de V Algerie 30 May,
1889, that if a tobacco user's system is so
fortunate as 'to apparently tolerate its effects
for some years, the heart becomes enfeebled,
hardening and degeneration of the arteries
(arteriosclerosis; develops, making sudden
death imminent. Dr. Dumas of Algeria, in
the same Gazette 10 November, 1887, reports
fatal case of tobacco angina pectoris. Such
cases are not curable, says Dr. Huchard in
his Lectures in Le Bulletin Medicate.
Experiments by the prevailing methods
demonstrate that the gastric fluids are de-
minished, and digestion impaired by the use
42
of tobacco. — Dr. Ydan-Pouchkine in the
medical journal Wratch St. Petersburg,
Russia, Number 48, 1890.
Tobacco is responsible for a variety of
functional derangements which terminate
in organic diseases. Diseases of the kidneys
are caused thereby, writes Dr. A. G. Auld of
Glasgow, Scotland, in the London Lancet
20 April, 1889. Sugar in the urine (Diabetes
Mellitus, Glycosuria, Glucosuria) is not only
aggravated by tobacco, but it may be caused
by tobacco. — Dr. H. Stern in the Medical
Record 2^ April, 1901.
Doctor Kitchen writes in the Medical
Record 27 April, 1889, that it is easy to see
the dire effects of tobacco in the stunted
growths of adolescents in size, and other
forms of development; from disorders of
functions, including the heart, intellectual
sluggishness, loss of memory, color-blind-
ness, loss of or depraved appetite, neurosis
of motion, marked blunging of various func-
tions of sensation, hereditary degeneracy,
etc. Twenty per cent, more money is ex-
pended for tobacco in America than for
bread; and this comparison represents but a
small part of the real cost of the use of
tobacco.
43
VII
Tobacco Impairs the Functions of Both
Body and Mind,
The French writer, Andre Thevet, des-
cribed the serious effect of tobacco on the
sexual system in the year 1555. — The journal
Ame7'ican Medicine 22i h\)r\\, 1904. See also
regarding the same aifection Dr. Prodel's
article in the Gazette Medicale de PAlgerie
30 June, 1890; Dr. Decroix in the medical
journal Times and Register 15 November,
1890, and the Weekly Medical Review St.
Louis, 28 March, 1891; Dr. Lewin in the
Journal of Comparative Neurology Septem-
ber, 1893; E)r. Le Juge de Sagrais of Lu-
chon, France, in the Archives Generales de
Medicine 1902; and Dr. Petit in the medical
journal II Policlinico Rome, Italy, 1904.
Mental disease (Nicotinosis Mentalis) as-
cribed to the increased consumption of to-
bacco, is described by Dr. Kjellberg of
Upsula, Sweden, in the Wiener Medizin-
ische Presse, Vienna, Austria, 17 August,
1890, as characterized by distressing emo-
tions of indisposition and weakness, halluci-
nations, and delusions with suicidal intent.
44
Nicotinic Psychosis (tobacco mental dis-
ease) among marines, and workmen in fac-
tories- at Upsula who used tobacco, is
described by the same writer in the Weekly
Medical Review of St. Louis, Mo., 29 August,
1891, as manifesting itself by feebleness, in-
activity, and despondent ideas. Hallucin-
ations follow at an early period, accom-
panied by depressive ideas and, later, by
exalted and maniacal ideas and actions. Dr.
Lewin mentions similar effects of tobacco
in the Journal of Comparative Neurology.
Tobacco intoxication, from external ap-
plication of tobacco infusion for the destruc-
tion of lice, is reported by Dr. Auche in the
Journal de Medicine de Bordeaux, France,
22 March, 1891.
Rabbits slowly poisoned by cabbage leaves
wet with solution of tobacco, showed in post-
mortem examination progressive hardening
(sclerosis) of liver with proliferation of bile
ducts. Kidney and heart-muscle changes
were also found. ^Dr. Adler in AmeiHcan
Medicine 10 May, 1902.
/ Tobacco, as poisonous as it is, is not a
bacteriacide, or even an insecticide in the
true sense. Used against lice it has poisoned '
the host nearly to death while leaving the
parasite unhurt. As a fumigator against
germs, even the smoke of smoldering wood
has been found more efficient while far less
45
objectionable.— The medical journal Lancet,
London 4 May, 1907.
Bacilli Tuberculosis, from the mouth of
the cigar-maker, have been found alive and
ready for infection in the mouth-end of
cigars for the shaping of which spittle had
been used.
The Cigarmakers' International Union,
which has had an average membership of
less than 40,ocx) for ten years, reported in
the year 1909 that during the last twenty-
seven years it had expended close upon
$4,500,000.00 for the relief of the sick and
disabled, and for funeral charges, of mem-
bers of the Union.
At the Tuberculosis Congress in 1908, the
statement was made that this disease
had cost Amereica the vast sum of $1,100,-
000,000.00 every year. Many of these suf-
ferers were users of tobacco.
The use of tobacco conduces to the cause
of tuberculosis and, thereby as a matter of
course, detracts from the cure and treat- "
ment of this disease. See the medical jour-
nal The Hospital 2^ November, 1908, on the
report of the Henry Phipps Institute.
/ Tobacco has no value as a medicine. It
is injurious in convalescence from disease, y
writes Dr. Coughlin in The Jour, of the Am.
Med. Assn. 23 August, 1902.
/ Tobacco is injurious to the sense of taste,
46
to the throat, voice, nervouse system, di-
gestion, the bones, muscles, respirator}- sj's-
tem, heart, senses of sight and hearing; to
mental and physical development, and to
one's ability, generally, writes Dr. Blaisdell
in his book on Life and Health, 1902. /
Tobacco users do not stand surgical oper-
ations well; the}- are liable to collapse,
writes Dr. Bangs in the Medical Record,
New York City, 14 March, 1908.
A comparative study of the users and non-
users of tobacco among the students at Yale
University in respect to their physical de-
velopment, showed the following results of
one class in four years, viz:
Average increase in lung capacity in users,
.15 litre; in non-users, .25 litre, or an in-
crease of 66 per cent, greater for non-users.
Inflated chest measurements, in users, .304
metre; non-users, .364 metre, an increase
of 19 per cent, greater in non-users. Height
in users, .0169 metre; non-users, .0202 metre,
an increase of 20 per cent, greater for non-
users. Weight, in users, .4 kilogramme
(i pound); non-users, .5 kilogramme (i 1-4
pounds), an increase of 25 per cent, greater
for non-users. Of the entire class 70 per
cent, did not use tobacco. The prominent
athletes, with one exception, did not use to-
bacco, and all candidates for the boat crew
abstained from its use. — Dr. Jay W. Seaver
47
physician and instructor in athletics at
Yale University, in the Sa/iifnriau New
York, September, 1891.
Doctor Seaver also reported to the Na-
tioiial Popular Rcviczv, San Diego, Califor-
nia, January, 1893, ^he comparative condi-
tion of yy non-users of tobacco, 22 irregular
users, and 70 habitual users at Yale Univer-
sity, viz:
In weight the non-users increased 10.4
per cent, more than the regular users, and
6.6 per cent, more than the occasional
users. In height, the non-users increased
24 per cent, more than the regular users,
and 14 per cent, more than the occasional
users. In chest-girth the non-user had an
advantage over the regular user of 26.7 per
cent.^'and over the occasional user of 22 per
cent. In lung capacity the growth was in
favor of the non-user 77.5 percent, when
compared with the regular user, and 49.5
per cent, compared with the irregular user.
Similar pernicious effects of tobacco have
been noted by Dr. Hitchcock among the
students at Amherst College {^American Med-
icine 13 September, 1902, by Dr. Lewin in
the Jotirnal of Comparative Neurology, and
by man}^ other physicians and educators,
including those of Defiance (Ohio) College,
whose tobacco-using students also could not
make good grades in their studies.
48
Aside from alcoholic beverages, tobacco
is the most commonly used poisonous sub-
stance/ One of its active parts, Nicotin,
has long been known as one of the most
deadly poisons. Adler and Hensel have,
by injecting solutions of Nicotin, seen
arterial degeneration produced in rabbits.
— Editorial in The Jour, of the Am. Med.
Assn. 13 October, 1906, based on an article
in the Journal of Medical Research of 1906.
Doctor Kellogg very appropriately and
forcefully contends that the use of tobacco
is the fundamental vice cff the habit of
drinking alcoholic beverages; the tobacco
exciting a craving for strong drink. From
the year 1879 he has refused to undertake
the care of any case of alcoholic inebriety
without full understanding, and consent of
the patient, for the quitting of tobacco also.
— Modern Medicine June, 1899.
All persons who are thinking that they
get tobacco that satisfies the habit's crav-
ing, and which contains no nicotin, are
referred to the experiences of the Austrian
Government which, having monopoly of the
tobacco trade, began to sell its subjects
tobacco with the nicotin removed. The
people addicted to full tobacco at once
recognized the loss of the desired active
part, and refused to purchase the weakened
weed. — Vienna Letter in The Jour, of the
Am. Med. Assn. 16 March, 1907.
49
VIII
Tobacco Begets Indolence, and Indif-
ference TO Propriety, and to
Well -Being.
Observers of the evils of tobacco-using
in general are not agreed upon the form of
use that is the most injurious, or the most
disgusting. Nor are tobacco-users agreed
among themselves on these questions.
Every user having a favorite form of use,
contends that it is the least harmful of all
other forms. The tendency with users of
the weed, however, is to become so deeply
sunken in the vice as to desire tobacco in
different forms. It is a truism that the per-
son who uses the least in quantity suffers
the least from the poison regardless of the
form or way in which it is used.
I Cigarets are thought by many users of to-
bacco to be more injurious than other ways
of smoking because of the habit of deeper
(?) inhalation of the smoke of cigarets
which, some think, possesses relatively more
of the noxious ingredients of tobacco/ But
many smokers of cigars, and pipes, also in-
hale the smoke, and get even more of the
50
poison into the system, relative!}', than do
cigaret smokers. Possibly some 'manufac-
turers' add other noxious ingredients to the
tobacco as has been charged against them.
Analysis of some cigaret papers have shown
them clear of such treatment; but there are
many kinds of papers, and of tobaccos, not
reported upon.
Cigarets may be used in greater number,
and by younger bo3^s, than cigars or pipes
and, other things being equal, the 3'ounger
the age the greater the evil effect from the
same quantity of tobacco of the same
strength.
In an article on poisoning of the blood by
the use of tobacco (Tobacco Toxemia) by
Dr. R. V. Dolby of Vancouver, British
Columbia, printed in the journal Northwest
Medicine, Seattle, Washington, October,
1909, he writes in part, that: Chewing is
without doubt the most pernicious form in
which to employ tobacco. The pipe and
cigar, far from being the safest medium for
the indulgence of tobacco, are the most dan-
gerous. Tobacco amblyopia, cardiac syn-
cope, angina, loss of memory, tardy and
delayed cerebration, are found chiefly in
heavy cigar and pipe smokers. Even can-
cer of the lips or tongue seems to be the
special heritage of the pipe or cigar smoker.
The cigaret is responsible for the cardiac
51
irritability, largely in neurotic people, also
responsible for irritable laryngitis and phar-
yngitis. . . .
y^The tobacco habit not only enslaves the
will, but it often perverts the mind and ac-
tions of its victim. When called to account
for their continued adherence to the unde-
sirable habit, men either change the subject
of conversation, or begin to talk about 'use
and abuse of the weed' as though there
could be the least use of tobacco without
abuse of the system, which is impossible. It
is also impossible for the user of tobacco not
to use it to 'excess. ^^/
'^It has been estimated that there is more
money expended in the United States each
year for tobacco and alcoholic beverages
than for bread and education combined./
The taxes of the General Government (Inter-
nal Revenue Receipts; for 1908 are reported
as being $49,862,754.00 on tobacco, and
$140,158,807.00 on spirits. To these very
large amounts should be added hundreds of
millions received by the tobacco and grain
growers and the manufacturers. The pecun-
iary cost of these habits, however, is small
compared with their vicious, demoralizing,
weakening and degenerating effects now, and
their entailing effects of misery upon future
generations. No one can afford such habits
in any true sense.
52
Americans are not nervous in imagination
only, as has recently been promulgated in a
book which has been noticed broad-cast in
newspapers. Talk with the tobacco-users in
their moods of honesty with themselves and
with you, and they will tell you the fault is
with tobacco, and with the alcohol if they
have this habit also. Physicians, non-users
of tobacco, could tell the same regarding the
cause of men's nervousness, and of their
necessarily shortened lives by these habits;
of the cause of the 'break-downs' ; the heat-
stroke deaths; 'brain-storm' murders, and
suicides; also of the cause of deaths from
'accidents' attributed by reporters to 'de-
fects in the steering apparatus of the auto-
mobile, the horse becoming unmanageable'
and many other subterfuges.
Most of the fires, as well as a large per-
centage of the death-rate arise from the
direct and cumulative results of tobacco,
alcohol, or both combined.
Associated Press Dispatches from Johns-
town, Pa., II September, 1909, mention
death, and serious injuries, from explosion
of a keg of powder by a spark from a ci-
garet being smoked over the open keg; and
near Key West, Florida, was reported 28
August, 1909, the death of twelvp men and
serious injury of five others by the explosion
of seven hundred pounds of dynamite from
53
a lighted cigaret thrown into a box of
fuses. Such is the thoughtless, indolent,
often careless, indifference to propriety, even
to well-being, begotten by tobacco using!
The ever-ready matches are also scattered
so that children get them — and numerous
children have been thus burned to death,
others maimed for life, and much valuable
property destroyed, by the fires they have
caused. Could all the facts be gathered
from every community regarding deaths,
maimings and misery from these allied
causes, the list would be appalling.
Newspapers seldom report the true cause
of death in any community, from regard for
.the feelings of surviving friends. Such is
also the case with physicians' reports and
certificates throughout most of the long Hst.
The true cause of death is evaded when pos-
sible, and the report is made to read: acci-
dental, from violence, despondency from
poor health, chronic inflammation andchange
in one or another of the vital organs, etc.,
etc., without naming the exciting cause.
These enormities have been so frequent in
every city and township that the people soon
forget those that have occurred in their lo-
cality, and read with little concern about
the similar catastrophes coming to their
notice from other places.
Tobacco has never been charged with its
54
proper share in the causation of the sad
property losses, diseases, sufferings, and
deaths mentioned on the preceding pages.
Modern science is just beginning to show
the iniquities of the use of alcohoHc bever-
ages. It is, however, as yet deahng only
with bodily or physical phases of the great
evil. Tobacco-using should be combatted
as a close companion evil, not only in a
physical sense but as a mental, psycholog-
ical, and moral evil.
Every observing person can point to num-
erous evil effects of tobacco and alcohol in
every community, both of recent and of he-
reditary origin. Many physicians for many
years have been sounding notes of warning,
and they are now taking more advanced and
practical measures in all civilized countries
for the suppression of these evil habits, and
for lessening the increase of physically and
mentally defective children. Even the
English Press has therefrom had occasional
spasms of 'regretting that the British race
is deteriorating.' — See abstracts in The
Literary Digest of 24 July, 1909.
55
IX
Tobacco Causes Organic Degenerations,
AND THE Transmission of Degen-
eracy.
To the medical profession the credit is
due for the degree of hygiene and sanitation
- that prevails, as well as for the pure food
and drug law, and for other improved modes
of living. But the medical profession should
have more power from the governments.
The American Medical Association has been
laboring for a generation, and longer, for a
National Department of Public Health,
with a-free-from-political-bias physician as
a Cabinet Officer at its head. Progress has
been made toward this desirable result.
/ There has been, and yet is, a sorry need for
uniform human-hygiene and other far-reach-
ing health laws, and for their uniform en-
forcement throughout the Nation. The
Congress has expended millions of dollars for
the improvement of the 'blood' and the
health of the farmers' live-stock (which was
proper) but scarcely a dollar has it expended
for the improvement of the blood or health
56
of the people, other than for quarantine and
the marine hospital service, ostensibly in
the interest of commerce./
Not until the United States has a De-
partment of Public Health with the dignit}^
of a Governmental Department, and there is
a uniform system of health laws throughout
the States, will there be a fully equipped
rallying center for the Christian Good Sense
of the Nation in the support of all wise
measures best calculated to ameliorate the
evils and defects that now exist, and to in-
troduce and carry forward measures for the
proper endowment, physically and mentally,
of future generations.
Everyone can, and should, help in this
most worthy eiFfort; in talking ab'out it and
begetting favorable interest in the commun-
it}^ that will help to secure nominations, and
elections, only of men of correct habits who
will, in State Legislature, and in the Con-
gress, subserve the best. interest of the peo-
ple in these most important reforms, as well
as in other ways.
Anj^ habit, or act, of a parent that pro-
duces much of even functional disturbance
has bad effect upon the children begotten
by such parent. The deep defects produced
by tobacco on the generative system, men-
tioned on preceding pages, perniciously af-
fect the germ plasm, and germ cells, and
57
cannot but show blight, more or less, in the
children that may be born of a parent
addicted to this vice.
Tobacco, in some ways even more than
the alcoholic-beverage habit, touches force-
fully the nerve centers; the medulla ob-
longata, the spinal center, the generative
center, and the great sympathetic nerve
centers, leaving therein its trail of debility,
defects, and degeneration, all of which af-
fections are in line of transmission to pos-
terity.
^.-^^any children not showing pronounced
effects of degeneration in early life, will
exhibit great defects in later years, from
want of physical or mental strength to with-
stand the duties of life. A careful obser-
ver can discern many such cases, in many
variations of defects, in every community.
Some of the defects or perversions may
have alcoholism as well as nicotinism as
a contributing factor; and some may be
traced to result from one or more grand-
parents in different generations; but most
of them are due to cumulative evils.
As the generations have come and gone,
the number of perverted or otherwise de-
generate children have increased; and with
the impetus the cause has obtained, they
will continue to increase for some length of
time, even after the tobacco and alcohol
58
habits are suppressed, and a thorough sys-
tem of 'breeding up' be inaugurated.
Eugenics is a new science in human race
improvement that is as yet not fully devel-
oped, even in theory. Too many of its ad-
vocates are addicted to tobaccoism at least,
and yet take too narrow a view of the re-
quirements of the science. However, some
investigators along this line are doing good
work so far as they can with their present
serious handicaps. In this connection see
the July, 1909, number of The Annals of
the A inerican A cadeiny of Political and So-
cial Science Number i of Volume XXXIV,
all of the 171 pages of which are given to
the discussion of Race Improvement in the
United States. Also see late discussions,
and enactment, of the Indiana Legislature.
The prevention of improper marriages or,
more properly and far reaching, the preven-
tion by surgical operations of propagation
of children by the diseased, by criminals, by
those mentally unfit, and all manner of de-
generates, of both sexes, may become a
necessity if the vices of narcotism and its
great brood of evils are not suppressed.
The advances made by mankind in civili-
zation have been tortuous and slow, mainly
from bad habits. Nations and their accum-
ulations have been overthrown by the
results, directly and cumulatively, of narcot-
59
ics, wrongly called stimulants, such as al-
coholic beverages, opium, tobacco, etc.,
and their perverting effects.
There can be properly-healthful manhood,
and properly-true and sure progress, only as
mankind is fed on the plainest most whole-
some foods, and the purest water; and the
entire life, and action, strictly governed
along the line of what is for the best.
Poverty, misery, crime, and all the horde of
otherevils now existing, can be banished only
by giving children their proper heritage of
sound health, and rearing them along this
reasonable, most important, and obligatory
line of sanity.
All writers, and other workers, for the
welfare and betterment of mankind have
friends, many friends or relatives, addicted
to, enslaved by, degenerating habits. And
many well-meaning people do not mention
or strongly combat these habits on account
of these friends or relatives. This is often
from a sentiment that cannot well be wholly
justified. Do good, let your light and in-
fluence shine, and be felt, whatever 'friend,'
relative or enemy oppose.
None but good, clear minds, honest and
brave hearts will well inaugurate and carry
forward any thorough movement for the
overcoming of evil habits and the better-
ment of the human race; and it is incum-
66
bent upon everyone to do everything possi-
ble to help forward this most worthy move-
ment.
Everyone who flaunts the vice of tobacco
or alcoholic enslavement in public, is an
enemv to the human race, in that he there-
by exerts a pernicious example to his or his
neighbors' children, which may in turn
cause their enslavement in the same vice and
thus contribute to the increase of degener-
ates in the land.
/' It is a duty that everyone owes to his
God, to his family, to himself, community.
State and Nation, to be exemplary in his
habits and, so far as possible, a worthy
character for the youth and others to pat-
tern after. The greatest responsibility na-
turally rests upon the parents; but no one
has right to exemption from the duty stated^
The word reformer is one of the best of
words; an^it has been more manifest each
year that every right-minded man and wo-
man should work together, prudently and
forcefully, for the replacing of evil habits in
their community with those habits best for
the individual, the family, and for the State./
With right-minded people it is more evident
to day than ever before that tobaccoism is
second in evil only to alcoholism, and is
generally a recruiting stage for alcoholism.
The two greatest things that block the
6i
wheels of Progress in civilization to day,
are these enslaving habits and a debased
commercialism founded upon them. Were
it not for the economic feature of vice
shortening the lives of the enslaved, and
the work of the few thoroughly Christian
parents and reformers — the salt of the
earth — there would be reversion even worse
than to the dark ages, with little other than
idiots, weaklings, criminals, and anarchy
abroad in the land.
The Southern States have been making
noble strides against the vice of alcoholism.
The Northern States should rise equal to
the occasion and carry the wave of reform
yet further, against tobaccoism as well as
alcoholism, the twins in opposition to free-
dom of the will, and to civilization. No
one can afford to oppose these efforts for
reform.
/ The culture of tobacco and the distilleries
of alcohol have been the greatest curses of
the United States./They have been the
greatest detractors from proper agriculture.
Farms have been sadly neglected where
alcohol abounded. /Tobacco has not only
impoverished the soil^but it has bred night-
riding, anarchy and death. The United
States should be the great food and cloth-
ing (grain, and other foods, cotton, flax, and
wool) producers for the nations. The agri-
62
culturists are rising year by 3^ear to greater
freedom from enslaving habits. But they
cannot rise to the full dignity of their work
until fully free; and until every acre of land
is devoted to its best and most honorable
use.
X
Questions Answered. The Corruptors.
Reformers Wanted For Their
Suppression.
Doubtless many questions will arise in the
minds of those who have read this little
book through to this page. Most of the
questions that have been presented to the
writer at different times about tobacco, are
answered in this section. Some of these
answers have been embodied in preceding
pages. In fact much of this book may be
said to be line upon line, precept upon pre-
cept, and warning upon warning.
There are many noxious, even poisonous,
plants growing by the roadside, in waste
places, and in fields, for which no particu-
lar use to mankind has been discovered. A
few of such plants are of some service to
mankind when discreetly used. Not so with
63
tobacco. Tobaccoism or nicotinism is
classed with opiumism or morphinism, co-
cainism, hashishism, and alcohoHsm. To-
bacco and alcohol possess not one redeeming
feature for use as medicine like opium,
cocain, and hemp. Alcohol has valid use
only in the arts and sciences. -^Tobacco has
no valid use whatever^
Tobacco habit is not formed from natural
desire for the pungent weed. Some persons
have formed the habit from unwise advice
of physicians or others addicted to it.
Generally, however, the habit is formed by
boys who are induced to persist through
the sickening tastings to form the habit, by
the dares or challenges, taunts and gibes of
their already degraded associates. Too of-
ten this pernicious influence has come from
men upon whom the boys have looked as
exemplars, but who are degenerates; also
from dealers in tobacco who desire pecun-
iary profit thereby ! Recently a boy in
England three years and nine months of
age, ill generally and with a tobacco heart,
was presented to hospital for treatment; and
it was there learned that his father had
trained him to smoke, and was giving him
ten cigarets a day, and was gathering money
from those to whom he was exhibiting the boy
in public in the act of smoking them! — The
Medical Times, New York City, 1909.
64
Surely, many people in the palmy days of
old Greece were put to death for corrupting
the young to less degree than in these in-
stances.
Often the depravity and perversions of
the tobacco habit are asserted in most un-
reasonable and untoward ways. The victim
being so strongly enslaved that the will
power cannot reinstate itself, every shadow
of fallacy is seized at in an effort to excuse,
even to warrant, continuance of the vice.
Assertion is made that tobacco preserves the
teeth, which is not true. Also that it aids
digestion; the fallacy of which statement
has been shown over and over on preceding
pages of this book. An impure breath is
combined with a worse odor by tobaccoism.
There can be nothing worse than tobacco
reek.
Tobacco conduces to unhealthy flesh in
both the lean and the overfleshy. If any
change in weight occurs, it is likely to be
from fatty degeneration, or a wasting from
indigestion and malassimilation, from the
tobacco.
The physicians and clergymen who are
tobacco inebriates, contracted the habit
with their fellow boys, or in another unto-
ward state, and are, like others, so enslaved
that they cannot readily quit the vice.
They should be the first to keep their shame-
65
ful indulji^ence out of sight ; and should wholly
quit the habit as soon as possible. If their
volition is so far deteriorated that they can-
not reform within themselves, they should
abide in a sanatorium until their will power
and general strength for abstaining from
the vice are fully restored.
The fact that an occasional user of to-
bacco lives to old age, is but a rare excep-
tion to the rule that tobacco produces dis-
ease and greatly shortens life. The human
system shows remarkable powers of tolera-
tion, accommodating itself to the many
serious impositions upon it. Were it not
for the extra strong eliminating, and accom-
modatingly elastic powers possessed by some
people, there would be more shortened lives,
even of early and sudden deaths, from to-
bacco, alcoholic beverages, and overeating,
than there are at present, as numerous as
such deaths now are.
When a man tells of the composure of
his nerves and mind by tobacco, it is but
the confession of his enslavement b}^ the
habit. The cravings for tobacco are but the
appeals of the habit for forging yet stronger
the chains of its victim's enslavement. One
so enslaved cannot think, or work, naturally
well when using and under the influence of
tobacco, and much less can he think or
work well without it; hence the habit is a
66
great impairer of natural thinking and work-
ing ability. Because some men of great
natural ability have done some good work
when addicted to the vice, it is not at all to
the credit of tobacco; they could have done
far better without it.
Insistence upon total abstinence from al-
coholic beverages, tobacco, and all other
narcotics, is not antagonistic to personal
liberty in any reasonable sense; but it forms
the best assurance for personal liberty in
every true sense. Alcoholic and tobacco
inebriety are the worst kind of slavery. No
one can have moral, legal or personal lib-
erty with either. Even 'moderate' use of
tobacco or alcoholic beverage of any kind
is as unsafe to personal liberty as it is dan-
gerous to health, and the formation of a
wholly uncontrollable habit that will ruin
both body and soul.
C It is the duty of the State to outlaw every-
thing inimical to the welfare of its citizens.
Hence it is that every grade of court has
decided that the traffic in spirituous liquors
is illegal; and so it should be with tobacco,
the only dangerous narcotic that is at pres-
ent not under proscription of a just and
rigorous law.
It is a wholesome sentiment, that it is the
duty of parents, and of States, to see strictly
to the matter, that the children, and
67
adults, are not blighted in body or mind by
any narcotic, or other cause, as only such can
make proper citizens^
Alankind needs neither the vice of tobac-
co using, alcoholic beverage using, nor any
other vice, to do his or her best work. In
fact, one's bodily, business, and mental troub-
les multiply, and their friction increases,
from such habits^ To be temporarily 'sooth-
ed' (have the sensibilities blunted) by such
habit, is but to blunt, obscure or pervert
thoughts and realizations of duty. (In this
connection, see Dr. James L. Tracy's paper
on The Psychology of the Tobacco Habit in
the journal American Medicine ^ New York
City, July, 1909)-
The statement has been made occassion-
ally, and often implied, that it is necessary
for the young to *sow wild oats' and neces-
sary for mankind to have tobacco or alcohol
habit, or some other vice. This is the
most fallacious and pernicious of assertions,
and could emanate only from an evil mind.
Because people with these habits are per-
verted in mind, it is a most outrageous work
for them to proclaim that others are, or
should be, like themselves. Such enslaved,
perverted wills, and minds, are dangerous
factors to be abroad in the land. Mental
and moral obliquity go hand in hand. When
the body and mind, the physical and the
68
psychical, are perverted, an}- other evil is
likely to be near at hand; and the converse
is also true.
The personal habits, of body and mind, of
everyone seeking patronage, or employment
should be carefully and thoroughly investi-
gated. Such investigation should be even
more thoroughly made regarding those seek-
ing public office. It can readily be under-
stood by thoughtful, observing persons, that
anyone handicapped with enslaving, per-
verting habits cannot retain the full measure
of a trustworthy man. All public servants,
and distinctively mental and moral teachers,
should possess full}^ rounded characters free
from all vicious habits, and possess influences
that tend only for the betterment of their
community and commonwealth in all ways,
Total abstinence people in every com-
munity should club together and work pru-
dently, and forcefully for all of the rights of
those who desire to live clean and worthy
lives.
That many tobacco users often have such
worthy feelings and desires, is without ques-
tion. The ph3^sical sufferings wrought by
tobacco are not so keen as are the frequent
dissatisfied, even disgusted, condition of the
minds of yet sensible and would be respect-
able men, who chafe under the fact that
they are enslaved by such filthy, vicious
69
habit. However, too many, alas, lose all
will power even to make manly effort to
quit the vice, and lose, or ignore, their self-
respect also; even assume the vicious role of
bravado, in effort to appear wholly regard-
less of their own welfare, and of the rights
of those so unfortunate as to be afflicted
with their presence.*
No one has any right to flaunt his depra-
vity and his depraving habit in public. No
one has a right to circulate on a street or
elsewhere in public reeking with tobacco,
much less puffing its smoke in the faces of
others. Such bravados are becoming intol-
erabl}' numerous. In business places, public
offices, even in postofifices, courthouses,
hotels everywhere, and restaurants, where
free women and free men are obliged tt) go,
it has become necessary to pass through an
atmosphere vitiated by tobacco breaths and
tobacco sputa!
These are public outrages upon civiliza-
tion that self-and-rights-of-others respecting
men and woman should not longer continue
to endure meekly, as they have done in the
past. The right of everyone to pure air,
unadulterated by tobacco or other deleteri-
ous odors, should be insisted upon by all
clean people, forcefully if necessary.
*See Report on National Vitality^ Its Wastes and
Conservatism, b}^ Professor Irving Fisher, 1909.
70
From the foregoing, and from the candid
thought by every one, can there be any
question about the extreme sinfulness of
tobacco using, and other narcotic habit, —
of their extreme sinfulness against self,
against the community, against future gen-
erations, and against The Creator?
Reduced to the ultimatum, tobacco is
worthy of no less an anathema or curse than
Shakespeare applied to the influence of al-
coholic beverages: If thou hast no other
name I will call thee Devil ! Also, of the
terrible arraignment of its companion evil
by Reverend Robert Burton (born A. D.
1577, died 1640) who wrote of tobacco in
162 1, that: *Tis a plague, a mischief, a
violent purger of goods, lands and health;
hellish, devilish, and damned Tobacco; the
ruin and overthrow of body and soul !
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YC1(>8127
